Journalist, Isifu Wirfengla, bags Master’s Degree.

This was before a four-member panel. The thesis was titled: "The Implications of Journalists' Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Newsgathering. Case study: The Guardian Post Newspaper & The Post Newspaper-Cameroon". 

It was supervised by ace communication trainer, Dr Emmanuel Mbede, who doubles as Director of CRTV’s Institute for the Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage, IFCPA. 

The jury of the thesis defence was composed of the Director of ASMAC, Prof Marc Modzom, as President; Prof Olivier Bilé and Dr Collette Djadeu as members while the Director of CRTV Audiovisual School, Dr Emmanuel Mbede, served as Rapporteur. 

Motivation of study  

While presenting the research findings, the researcher explained that the study was provoked by his zeal as a journalist to do a retrospection of what is happening in his domain. 

His daily exchanges with journalists who repeatedly request interviews through use of ICTs, Wirfengla said, also provoked him to diagnose, through the study, the implications of journalists’ use of ICTs in the news gathering process.

“…journalists often get to me to record voice notes, reacting to a particular event; whether it is in the sports domain or in politics or society and then they send through social media. Whether it is a video, an audio piece. So, at some point, I started questioning what journalists have become. Are they restricting themselves just to the ICTs? ...Is there a certain manner of the use of ICTs that causes problems to the professional tenets? That noble profession that we know,” he explained.  

Snippet of the research methodology 

The researcher made use of the triangulation technique, through the use of two Qualitative Research Approach methods; Ethnography and Case Study.

Both methods, he explained, helped to investigate the culture shared by groups of journalists to understand their experiences and motivations around ICTs as well as helped to immerse and observe their ICT cultures and analyse newspaper articles, 

The study also made use of three theories: Technological Determinism Theory by McLuhan; Social Constructivism by Piaget, Vygotsky and John Dewey and the Theory of Mediamophorsis by Roger Fidler were used in the study. 

Zoom on key findings 

Wirfengla’s quantitative research piece which made use of participant observation, interviews and content analysis, concluded that though ICTs have revolutionalised the print media industry, its abusive use by journalists has contributed in eroding the fundamental tenets of journalism practice and soiled the reputation of journalists in the eyes of the publics and news sources.

Abusive use of the ICTs by journalists, the research finding indicated, “is very dangerous” and has made superficiality of news common.  

“News these days is just the surface level,” the researcher stated, detailing further that this adds to the phenomenon of “armchair journalism, poor perception of the journalists’ image by the public, by news sources…”. 

Journalists who abuse the use of ICTs, the scientific inquiry further revealed, “end up spoiling their image, their reputation in the eyes of news sources”.

The findings, the researcher added, pointed out that “journalists turn to be carried away with the wave of the ICT”.

Information which journalists rush to publish, the research also pointed out, are often “either false or it is very inaccurate”. 

The researcher said journalists do not need to forget that online journalism is the same thing as conventional journalism. 

On the positive side, the research piece underlined the fact that ICTs have “revolutionised the newspaper industry” by facilitating production, sales, visibility.

“There are newspapers which are even more famous these days than television because they have decided to move with the ICTs. They have decided to adapt and not die,” the researcher said. 

Key recommendations 

Moving forward, the researcher who doubles as staff at Communication Department of the Ministry of Justice, recommended that news media owners should institute a code of ethics for online journalism and use of ICTs by their journalists in the newsgathering process. 

“That has to be taken very seriously and journalists have to be taken through seminars and reminded of the fact that online journalism is the same as conventional journalism. They have the same principles. But what we see these days is different. Journalists think that online journalism is different and it is faster. That speed is fake because in the end, you always find yourself in problems,” the researcher stated. 

Wirfengla said it is because of such speed and failure to properly investigate stories that “more and more journalists are facing litigations in courts today for either tarnishing of images” due to “mismanagement of information”.

Jury praises candidate for mastery of work 

After cross-examining the candidate, the jury hailed the researcher for his finger-tip mastery of the work and the subject matter. They unanimously awarded him a very good score of 16/20. 

The jury was unanimous that the study adds relevance to the journalism profession, especially at a time ICTs have increasingly been incorporated in news gathering, treatment and dissemination process. 

The thesis supervisor, Dr Emmanuel Mbede, said he was very happy to have supervised the candidate whom he described as serious and passionate about research.

He praised timeliness of the candidate's topic, at a time that another technology, Artificial Intelligence, AI, is animating research discourses about its implications on journalism practice across the globe.

Dr Mbede said the candidate was committed and took time to effect every correction that was required. He mentioned how the candidate removed 25 pages which he had ruled out for being superfluous.

He underlined the candidate's research skills and capacity and noted that such candidates were to be encouraged in academia.